Cardinal

By: Ralph Pelletier

Cardinal

By: Ralph Pelletier

Tracking the Cardinal

You can usually track the cardinal by the song the bird makes and the tracked the bird leaves.

A Cardinal's Life

Cardinals start off when hatched naked except for tufts of grayish down, closed eyes, and clumsy. As they get older males develope bright red feathers around the body and with a black face, the females are brown with a reddish tint all over. The females are the ones to usually build the nest by breaking twigs until pliable and then turning in the nest to bend the twigs into a circular shape with the male bringing some material. Cardinals only use a nest once and it's usually placed in like shrubs and trees such as dogwood. Cardinals fly in pairs during mating season but usually flies in groups of a few dozen during fall and winter they also hop on low branches to forage for food the oldest Cardinal recoded was 15 years and 9 months. Most people just let Cardinals be, but other will put out feeders for the birds.